After a sad October, and anxious November, and a flat out insane December, we had planned for January to be a recovery month. And I think it started out that way, for a few days at least. We didn’t make resolutions as such, but we decided to eat at home more frequently and ease up on the alcohol consumption. Try to be less sedentary. Little things.
Serenity at West Cave Preserve – this is part of the Grotto hike
Our friends invited us along on a hike the first non-holiday weekend in January at West Cave Preserve. That gave us all some motivation to get out of the house and see people we hadn’t seen for a couple months. (The hike, by the way, was lovely. The grotto was peaceful and our guide was both patient and informative. Plus, we got to go into a cave and see a tiny bat!)
The week leading up to that was pretty mild. Kids went back to school. We slowly took down Christmas decorations and packed away gifts and souvenirs and things.
Then on Thursday night (I think), after we had put the kids to bed and I was coming through for some hugs, it happened. Maya was fully hiding under her covers as usual. She’s pretty wary of the dark, and it just makes her feel safer, so I didn’t think much of it. I came in and leaned over the cover lump to give it a hug, just like I have done hundreds of times before, and just as my head was mere inches from hers, she launched directly upward to surprise me. Surprise! Her hard head collided rapidly with my left orbital socket. I saw lightning bolts emanate from the impact site.
After assessing the situation and watching my eye rapidly swell and change color, we decided an ER trip was not necessary. Instead, I applied an ice pack and set about assuring the kids that I would be fine, that I understood it was an accident, etc.
This is, I think, three days post bludger attack
By the next day, I looked like I had been on the wrong end of a domestic dispute. And I had to present myself for work. And that weekend, I had to go hiking. I avoided video conferences that first day when the swelling was at its worst. By the day of the hike, it was mostly just colorful.
The next weekend was a long weekend for us, and so I smoked my third ever brisket. My first one was still the best iteration, and I still don’t quite know the “why” of it. I can say that it’s much nicer tending a smoking rig when it’s 40-50 degrees out than when it’s 90. But the meat this time developed a tough exterior, which is not a trouble I have had in the past. Oh well, we’ll see how the next one goes.
We were going to have friends over to share brisket and hang out, but they had a close COVID exposure at one of the kids’ school and so our visit was canceled. This is the new normal, I guess.
Happy New Year from Ian.
Toward the end of the month, we discovered that we had a rodent issue … in our ATTIC. And that’s the story of how the month after we paid for Christmas gifts and a Disney trip and the month during which we paid our horrific property tax bill, we also paid to have the insulation replaced in our attic. Toys in the attic, you say? Nope, we had rats. Yuck!
Maya at the pottery wheel
And then the next weekend, Sean thought he might have COVID! We had just gone for a much-needed date night (we carefully selected a movie that had been out for a while, so we could hang out in an uncrowded theater) on Thursday. And then Friday, Sean started feeling bad. The kids had to be reassured that Dad wouldn’t end up in the hospital or worse, that we were just taking precautions.
Sean scheduled a PCR test for as early as he could manage, which happened to not be till Sunday. We had requested our government-issued rapid antigen tests earlier in the month, and they had just recently arrived, so Saturday morning, Sean took one of those – negative. He got his PCR results back already on Monday – also negative. In the mean time though, he stayed masked up and distanced, and I did all the running around that needed doing, which thankfully was not much.
Ian’s focaccia
During these weekends full of downtime, the kids dug into their Christmas and birthday gifts. They built legos. They tumbled rocks. They made pottery. Maya made cookies and muffins from her new cookbook. Ian made focaccia and pizza from his new cookbook. They played sooooo much Pokemon. Our January was a little fraught with peril, but it’s probably as quiet a month as we’re likely to get, so I guess we’ll go with it.
COVID sucks – here is a cute photo of 2/3 of our cats.
I’m so tired of talking about COVID. And thinking about COVID. And trying to decide whether we should do this or avoid doing that because of COVID. It has wrecked so many plans, has limited so much interaction, has taken so much time away. The omicron variant has been astonishing. The case loads ramped up so intensely, had we not been so COVID-weary already, we probably would have panicked. Now instead of letters from school about one case here and one case there, we get letters that say 9 new cases, 7 new cases, etc. Both kids have now had multiple close exposures in their classes. It feels like it’s just a matter of time now.
I had the sense to capture covid stats at the end of January / beginning of February, so here we are. Case counts are quite a bit higher than this by now, but it seems we’ve passed the peak – at least for this surge. Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (62.4% as of 1/8, 64% as of 2/1). Travis County – 1/7 137,126 cases and 1221 deaths – 1/31 168,740 cases and 1264 deaths. Texas – 1/8 4,949,933 cases and 76,365 deaths – 2/1 6,258,336 cases and 79,447 deaths. United States – 1/8 59,388,623 cases and 836,603 deaths – 2/1 74,943,050 cases and 886,691 deaths. The World – 1/8 303,306,989 cases and 5,481,521 deaths – 2/1 378,721,023 cases and 5,675,545 deaths.
